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What kind of musical backgrounds do you have?
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| Spearfish |
I've been extremely impressed by the tracks people post on here and everyone's knowledge of the production process. It makes me wonder if you guys are lifetime musicians, music students, or just picked up a copy of reason/fruity/cubase/etc and learned from there.
I've been playing guitar and piano for over a decade and have been in a few bands, released a few CDs, and have been trying to get this trance thing down for the past couple of years.
Looking forward to seeing what people's backgrounds are. |
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| Diginerd |
Studied tuba and clarinet at school for about 4 years (Odd combination I know!), and did bunch of music theory too. That all stopped when I was about 16 though.
I always had an interest in synths so I learned to play keyboards. Not very well though, the whole two hand playing thing has always been tricky! With a sequencer, some finger waggling, a bit of music theory and a lot of inspriation and luck you can get a long way though.
So basically I bought some gear and started screwing around. I also read everything I could get my hands on, which is now much easier with the internet everywhere (dating myself here!) The other thing I did to learn was talk to as many people I could who were a lot smarter than me and with more experience. It's amazing which people know if you ask them...
Wound up in a few bands, playing live and in the sudio was fun, but 3am driving up the M1 was not..
I went to college to do a HND course in "music technology and record production", but wound up leaving ater 2 weeks as it was "this is mister Jack plug and this is mister mixing desk". I asked them how much further they were going to go and it wasn't very far. Which was sad as when I was interviewing I had a long discussion about Bessel functions and FM synthesis. Turns out hey thought I'd lied on my application form. Meh. So I'm not impressed my by personal experience of college courses, though I've seen some others go from zero to a good level of knowledge pretty quicly by doing them. It depends on where your skill level is at the time I suppose.
After that I was introduced by a mutual friend to a "Name" DJ who totally blew my mind and I got into engineering his and anyone who was hanging arounds tracks. I also spent a lot of time in clubs listening to tracks and watching how sets are crafted and what got big reactions and what didn't. I also met a bunch of people who lived breathed and slept dance music.
After a while I decided I didn't like House music much and got a "Real" job.
Another chance encounter in '98 led me to discover trance and I was hooked on music again. I again hung around a lot of clubs and watched the floor listening to the music and and how it was put together.
Wrote a bunch of crappy tracks, some which other people din't think were so bad and they wound up geting released. In general I was on course for (maybe!) building a decent profile but with getting married and having a kid music took a back seat again.
Now I'm dusting off my gear, building a studio and we'll see what happens...
I'm still learning every day... |
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| Speactra |
I began making music with a friend when we where twelve years old, using the first dance ejay :D
2 years later he moved away, and I continued on my own. when I was 15 I bought magix music studio and started making music again. at the age of 16 it went with fruityloops for a year. Then I tried reason and got stucked. I used reason for about 2 years and now I'm using ableton live.
(now I'm 19)
I have learned a lot by myself and reading stuff on the net.
I have never studied any music in school, only the basics.
Nowadays I sound like this.
//Alexander :tongue2 |
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| Rikki |
I was always into computers and music and had a PC back in the start of the 90's. It was a 386 with no sound board so I saved up and got one (aged 13/14). I had a modem so downloaded a copy of ScreamTracker 3 from the Future Crew, a demo scene group from Europe and started muddling around with "module" style tracker music. I created hundreds of tune snippets (which Ive still got here on my HDD) along with a few of my own actual full tunes and a lot of reworking/remixes of tracks I liked. It was all happy hardcore styled stuff as this was around 1994/1995 now. I got into DJing by buying a set of Synergy CD players with pitch controls, pure but hey this was now the start of 1996. I bought turntables in August or September as I'd been going to a club and loved the music but the DJ couldnt mix worth a feck. I got busy with my Soundlab decks and got quite good. 3 months later my "band" which was really me, my PC and my ScreamTracker music got a gig at that very same club and I got a shot of their decks in front of about 600 people. I was only 17/18 at the time and it was one of the most nerveracking things Ive ever done, cueing up that first ever record. They liked what they heard and I got a residency that very night having only been DJing for 3 months :)
I continued making music on ScreamTracker for about another 6 months to a year then bought an AWE64 Gold audio card, this was the shizzle at the time and only things like the Turtle Beach were better without spending a fortune. I got a Quickshot MIDI master keyboard and installed the free software that came with it, Cakewalk Home Studio 2 and with this, ripped samples and my keyboard made a few more tunes but MIDI was a tricky one and I couldnt quite figure out SoundFonts so I was limited and got bored quickly.
I then decided just over a year ago to try music creation again and bought FL Studio 5 producer and an Evolution eKeys 49 keyboard, this is what Im using just now producing everything from cheesy dance music, trance-ish music, bouncy hardcore and banging hardcore.
Wow, I've written a novel! LOL
R.
ScreamTracker from the 90's
Cakewalk Homo Studio 2 |
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| flamingopikken |
My "musical" background isn't as exciting as most others.. I just started using eJay (for s and giggles) when I was like 11 / 12yrs old. Nothing serious at all, just playing around.
When I was 15 I got my hands on the Fruityloops-demo copy and even though the demo version is pretty limited I managed to get a feeling on how to make a track (more or less). I purchased the full copy of FlStudio 5 and started making music. I've been making music (mostly in trance, commercial trance, hard trance etc.) without any real qualities, just playing abit around.. I've been using FL for 2 years now, and I'm begining to get a quite allright grip on making trance tracks :) |
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| Dj Cola |
Well... In the 3d grade i studied flute (i know :D). and in the 6th grade i studied guitarr.. somewhere inbetween that i doodled with ejay at my girlfriend i had thens house (my mom called my a pimp :conf: ).
then there was a break for maybe 2-3 years then i found fruity loops some months ago... almost a year :). i got so hooked im going to study music and become a media technician or something :D |
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| Spearfish |
great stories guys! seems like most people wind up with copies of programs and just go from there. impressive that most of you started as young as you were. i only originally got ACID and a mixer and monitors when i was around 18 with the intention of recording rock/acoustic stuff (which i still do).
the next year or two i splurged on a jp-8000 and tried putting my own samples together for the first time. i fooled around with ACID and FL until i finally went out and got reason, and that program has made all the difference.
as far as my musical knowledge, i took guitar lessons for 6 years (ages 12-18) and learned a fair amount of theory, which has certainly helped me putting trance together. |
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| Del Phonic |
Always loved dance music. Decided i wanted to be a DJ. ran into the boundary of having to be making music to get there really these days.
Wasnt sure i could do it. Took E. Had a HUGE impact on my outlook on life and the future. Decided i had to do it. And seeing as i was already pretty good with computers and Decks and my brother used Cubase anyway so i got onto it quick enuff and kept learning. Now im finishing stuff. Its been utterly worth it and ultra rewarding and id do it all again tomorrow :D.
After 4 years i have just copyrighted my first track >> u can listen by clicking the link below.
http://www.acutemusic.co.uk/Del-Pho..._-_Stage_18.mp3
Please give me feedback. [email protected]
Cheers
Del Phonic |
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| DJ 00 Tommy |
Iv only started producing over the last year or so but i grew up with trance. Having a dad who was apart of a crew who travelled internationaly - iv seen many real raves since that day i was born.
I played keyboard for about a year back in grade 4 :p but that never helped much.
In year 7 i played the trumpet (it was compulsry) and around the age of 6 i always loved messing with rebirth. Iv been djing for about 2 years now witch has helped lead me into producing.
So trance has safely been in my vains since i was born but the producing i guess has only started now because of the money factor and i only have just become old enough to work. |
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| aquila |
Both my parents were active musicians in a church when I was a little kid, and both my sisters learned piano and drums. I tried piano lessons - but couldn't coordinate my hands and quickly lost patience. So I grew up with all my family playing music and I ended up being the technical guy to make all their music fit together.
So everything I know musically was learned passively from my family, which isn't anything official. I eventually got the composing bug in my early teens when Dad bought a small home studio with a couple of synths and an Atari computer running Sequencer One. Eventually we upgraded to an Amiga running Bars & Pipes and OctaMED, the latter showing me the internal workings of EDM.
Throw in the recipe a few hundred issues of Future Music for those fun tutorials and that's my background. |
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| BshidoHEAT |
I took piano lessons when I was a kid. I didn't get far since I moved to a different state, not that any of it stuck anyway.
A few years ago I started using mixman, started 'producing' from that, but I figured there should be more to it than that. I got a hold of FLS and I from there I started, a little over a year ago. |
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| chrisspob |
my dad bought me a keyboard for crimbo 8 year ago i had an atari st my teacher loaned me a copy of cubase and my fav song in my tape collection was dance music!!
= me getting into trance when i first heard gatecrasher discotech
recently tho ! surprisingly i moved from cubse to fruity since i got sick of hardware and its awkardness,(sounds good tho)
ive made loads of tracks an 2 this day aint showed any of them to a label, i shud as my mates say there good enough and there brutally honest normally
also started a new project for a friend who makes mash ups
a house tune of an old cheesey classic! easy peasy and sounding really good if you like the house+ old tune music!! |
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